He’d seen patients with less damage never regain the ability to walk, he told Longshore and her husband.

For two-and-a-half months, Longshore felt nothing from her chest down. But then she wiggled one of her toes.

Since then, “little by little,” she said, she’s been proving the doctor wrong.

On Sunday, Longshore, 45, completed the 6-kilometer (nearly four miles) walk in the 12th Annual International Discovery Walk Festival.

Accompanied by her son Alex, 9, personal trainer Stefanie Fisher and Stefanie’s daughter, 8-year-old Sarah, Longshore alternated between walking with her crutches and riding in her motorized wheelchair.

Longshore, 45, walked about one-quarter of a mile at a time.

A civil engineer for the city of Vancouver, Longshore said she works out weekly with Fisher, who shows her exercises to test out different muscles. If they find one that responds, Fisher makes her keep going, fatiguing the muscle to make it stronger. Longshore also swims and lifts weights. 

She’d recently returned from Hawaii, where she went with her two sisters. She was able to put an arm around each sister and walk across the beach to the water so she could snorkel.

“It feels good to get up and move,” she said Sunday at the finish of the walk.

That sentiment was shared by the approximately 2,000 people who signed up for at least one event in the three-day festival, which included longer walks, bike rides and swims at Hough Pool, said Romana Paynter, volunteer coordinator.

“Three days of springtime weather, I think it just brought the community out,” Paynter said Sunday at the Hilton Vancouver Washington, the event’s headquarters. She said 300 children participated in Saturday’s Family Fun Walk, triple the number that walked two years ago.

Hough resident Jake Carse opted to take his children on Sunday’s 6-kilometer route.

“Beats sitting around at home,” Carse said.

He carried daughter Reese, 1, in a backpack and pushed a double stroller occupied by Mae, 3, and Rome, 2.

He said his wife, Heather, was home with baby Irish, a boy born April 17.

“They did great,” he said of his three children, who were treated to popsicles that were being distributed to finishers outside of the Hilton.

He said he received a lot of looks from other walkers impressed by his super-daddy feat, but said the one who does the real work is his wife, who stays at home during the week while he’s at work.

“I’m just getting to do this on the weekend,” he said. “I get the Superman look, but if they only knew.”